Nag Hammandi Swap for Book Art Forum

Well that title needs some explaining doesn’t it! I have found a wonderful bookbinding community over on www.bookartsforum.com and at the end of last year one of the members suggested a swap based on the medieval book style of Nag Hammadi. These books were found burried in pots in the Egyptian dessert.

Here are some pictures of the book and the embellishments I made for it;

Front Cover of Nag Hammadi Book

Inside the Nag Hammadi book

After failed attempts to make my book with a board cover I reverted to leather and got on much better. Being a newish bookbinder, I do not have the tools or skills for some of the finer points of this bind. To make up for this I played to my streangths and used my papercrafting skills instead.

Detail of the boards lining the leather cover

I used Cuttlebug embossing folder D’vine Swirls to create the texture on the inside of the covers and applied Perfect Pearls patina set for the colouring. I wanted to keep the tie closure to the book and to make it a neater finish I used a die cut from the Cuttlebug Harlequin die for the front embelsihment, which I coloured with the same Patina set as the inside covers. This embellishment was attached with an eyelet which gave the ribbon tie a way of threading through the cover to the outside and be wrapped around the book to keep it closed.

Detail of handmade embellishments used on the cover of Nag Hammadi book

Links

The Nag Hammadi library is a collection of early christian gnostic texts, found at the town of Nag Hammadi in Egypt in 1945. Here is a link to the Nag Hammadi description over on Wikkapedia as they will do a much better job of explaining it all than me!

Thanks for your comment WOW I’ve just been to your blog, you give me itchy drawing hands. You live in the most beautiful place in the world. If I lived there I’d never be online just sitting drawing your house! Fabulous.

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